Wayward Home
by Aldrean Treu Peri
Summary: Spike Spiegel shares a table and his story with a wayward soul.


* Author's Note: Takes place following the Antarctic Trial and Remy's return to the mainland, although this occurs before he returns to the X-Men.  In the Cowboy Bebop universe, it happens at some point following the formation of the crew (Jet, Spike, Faye, Ed, and Ein are all living on the Bebop) and not before or after any particular session.  As a disclaimer, I do not own the X-Men or the Beboppers, although the place in this story is a creation of my mind.

Wayward Home

There is a place with no name but plenty of regulars.  It isn't a place that can be found by people actively searching for it, it is just a place that is sometimes available for those in need of a break.  It is a place of escape, a place of drinking, cards, pool, and of sharing stories, tall tales, and woes.  A place for drifters, vagabonds, roamers, rovers, rogues, thieves, scoundrels, curs, a home for the basic vice-ridden lowlifes down on their luck.

      It is a place familiar to Remy LeBeau, Gambit of the X-Men.

      The place is like a home away from home and so the company one keeps therein is akin to family.  Spike Spiegel wasn't inclined to argue with that line of reasoning, especially given the shipmates he considered family.

      Remy and Spike were the type of regulars whose comrades and acquaintances have visited the place.  Individuals such as Logan, Rogue, Faye, Gren…the list goes on for both souls.  Rogue once stopped by in search of something true, while Faye Valentine visited looking for direction.  Remy was currently there because he had no other place to be, and Spike was sitting with the Cajun because there was no other place he cared to be at.

      The two frequented the place, but this was the first time they had sat together, drank together, and spoke.

      "Dis place…it be steady.  As long as dere be bums like us, dis place will be around somewhere."

      "Kinda ironic that policy prevents questions when this is a place to get shit off your chest and to clear the mind."

      "Dis be a place to share at one's leisure, mon ami, not to face an inquisition."

      Spike grunted and took a pull of his beer.  He couldn't remember a time he had been there slamming liquor.  It wasn't really a place where one went to get sloshed quick, rather it was a place to nurse drinks and allow time, companionship, and a bit of alcohol to heal some wounds.

      "Your eyes wouldn't attract much interest where I be from," Remy said after a while, "but someone wit messed up peepers always know when someone else got eyes dat ain't normal."

      "There's differences still…mine aren't natural and, though people can get eyes like yours if they've got the woolong for it, something tells me those're eyes you were born with."

      "Oui.  Jus' part o' de curse 'o being a mutant." Remy replied.

      "Loosing an eye is just part of life for a syndicate brat.  Everyone looses something or gets a scar."

      "Sometimes Gambit wonder why it be easier to talk wit strangers den dose one be close wit.  Maybe, cause I know we never meet on de street or anywhere but here.  Maybe, cause I feel like I got somet'ing in common wit you."

      "Everybody's got something in common with everyone else in here. 'S why we all find this place from time to time."

      "Gambit don' know de mama an' papa he be born to."

      Spike sat there, idly twirling his beer.

      "He brought up by de T'ieves Guild o' New Orleans an' he loved a dangerous femme wit blond hair.  He almos' kill anot'er man dat loved his Bella Donna, an' so he have to leave home never to return.  Dead to his Jean-Luc an' Tante Mattie."

      Spike's mind resurrected the memories of his past, growing up on the streets and subsequently in the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate, Julia and Vicious and Mao Yenrai and Annie.

      "Gambit…he done t'ings he ain't proud o' none, t'ings he regret… 'specially 'cause de cost him de Queen o' his heart, de woman who shown him what he felt for Bella Donna not love.  Rogue, she got more'n her fair share o' troubles, she a fiery feisty stubborn femme dat Remy don't deserve none, but…for a while, she love him."

      For a time the two sat in companionable silence, the sound of talking, laughter, cards being dealt, drinking, and a few games of pool filling the air with easy background noise.  Remy took a swig of the whiskey before him, red-on-black eyes burning with emotion at the memories his over-simplified live story had drudged up.  Being left in Antarctica by the woman he loved so dearly, more than anything else, and how his escape from the frozen wasteland perhaps secured his doom.

      "Julia was Vicious's first." Spike said at last, staring at the table before them blankly.  "Cool, confident, deadly…it was like she was made for him, hard and with no illusions.  She did what she had to in order to survive and she was beautiful.  Vicious was practically a brother to me, though we hated each other when we first met.  Funny how things go fully circle like that.  Vicious was…vicious, ambitious, like a cold-blooded serpent.  We were partners and worked together smoothly, we shared the blood of the beast, we were killers.  But…there were cracks in our friendship because we had differences and Julia was like the straw that broke the camel's back."

      Gambit was slowly shuffling a deck of cards, now and then igniting one with his kinetic mutant ability and allowing it to burn to ash.  Spike watched him with mild interest as he paused for a moment to finish his beer and to collect his thoughts.

      "Julia and I had grown up on the streets together, before I was recruited into the syndicate.  She had to make a name for herself, had to prove her worth, had to push herself to the limit and beyond before she found a home in the syndicate.  We fucked up and fell in love, and of course Vicious knew.  We had known he'd find out, but we went ahead anyway, knowing we were setting ourselves up for disaster.  We were separated after our childhood and somehow we had found each other again and I didn't want to let go this time.  I wanted to leave; I wanted her to come with me.  Can't always get what you want they say.  I've been dead to my past for three years now.  Three years I've spent barely living, feeling like I'm lost in search of a dream, in search of Julia, and trying to avoid Vicious because he knows I'm still alive and kicking."

      Spike reached out and took a card from Remy's dwindling deck, twirling it to show the X-Man that it was the ace of spades.  Remy smiled humorlessly and poured a shot for the ex-gangster and himself as they commiserated for their fucked up lives and lost loves.

      "I'm stuck on a run-down bucket of bolts with a shrew woman, an ex-cop, a freakish hacker, and a mutt." Spike muttered.  "It's screwed up and we're always starving and fighting, but it's some kind of home.  If your home is Rogue…I bet her home is you." Smiling enigmatically at the man who seemed a kindred spirit, Spike Spiegel left Remy to his thoughts.

      There is a place without a name that welcomes the downhearted and allows world-weary sinners to share their burden with another lost soul for a time.  Spike Spiegel had gone there this particular evening because there wasn't anywhere else he cared to be, and he left to return to the most dysfunctional home he could imagine.  Remy LeBeau was there because there wasn't anywhere else for him to be…and he left in search of his home.


End file.
